My friend Elizabeth screamed, “Oh my God Bernadette!” and from that point on my world turned upside down. I quickly realized that she ran to hug me, but unfortunately ended up sitting on my head! As I sat in my wheelchair with my head touching the ground, not able to breathe, I looked straight ahead at the dingy, droopy ceiling tiles that have are very porous and immediately burst into laughter. I saw many people peering pityingly at me. These people turned away from their conversations to see what had happened. There were faces all around gazing in astonishment as Liz tried to regain her footing, which was hard to do when you are straddling a wheelchair, in an attempt to pull me up from the ground. No one seemed to know what to do to help so they just came over to see if I was all right. While Liz and I chuckled hysterically at what had just occurred some of our other friends joined us in the laughter. Luckily the bell had not yet rung, so I did not have to explain to my homeroom teacher, Mrs. Auvil, why I came late on the first day of school.

While I headed to the elevator which would take me to the third floor so I could go to room 360, I was still chuckling to myself. When I got to where I needed to be, there were other people from my homeroom standing outside the door talking to a teacher that I had never seen before. This teacher told us that 360 was no longer our homeroom. It was a sophomore homeroom. She also told us to try 204. So I frustratedly pushed myself down the third floor hallway to the elevator closest to the front of the school. My hands get sweaty when I grasp the metal of my push-rims on my wheels, so now my hands were sweating and tired I had just used all my energy to push myself there and then I needed to do it all over again. When I came to 204 it was not my homeroom. At this point, I felt as if I could force myself to get up and run downstairs. As fast as I could I turned to go back to the elevator to once again go upstairs and talk to the teacher to see where to go. If I would have turned in the opposite direction I would have realized that my homeroom was right next door with the stairwell in between them. I went up and let her know that I could not find it so, to help me, she called the office to see what homeroom I was supposed to be in. When the teacher got off the phone I was told that my homeroom was in room 208. Once again I had to go to the elevator and go down to the second floor. As I was going down to the second floor with the elevator bumping against the wall and making horrible noise it was a sick dog trying to bark.
When I got to Room 208 I got to rest my arms and have a chat with my friends. Not soon after this, we started an icebreaker game about what we did over the summer. I told them about my visit to Fenway Park and I added in that I saw men cleaning the seats with fire hoses that were so powerful that the hoses said, “shhhh” as the gallons of water shot out of each one. I thought that seemed important to tell because I never thought about how baseball stadiums were cleaned. When we got done saying what we did over the summer it was time to go to an assembly and get our pictures taken
I went through the halls and to the commons and a lot of people were talking about summer; especially everyone everywhere in the commons because the wait for pictures was always boring. When my picture was done I went right to first block.
First block I met Dr. Pollard, a new biology teacher at Haverford, and she gave us a syllabus and mints. I remember the mint tasting really good because I had not eaten breakfast. The mints are a good memory because from then on she had some on her desk everyday for us to have. By the time she was done explaining the syllabus it was time for the dreaded walk to American Studies. When I got to American Studies it was extremely awkward because everyone was sitting and the bell had not rung. Dr. Reilly and Ms. Reilly told us about class expectations and they also went over the syllabus. American Studies was over before I knew it and I went to Spanish IV with Ms. Reed. This class did not have a lot of people so, we had a very boring first half of class because we all have had Ms. Reed before and we knew what she was going to say. When it was time for lunch I ate quickly so I could go talk to my friends. My lunch must have been blah because I do not remember what I ate. When we got back to Ms. Reed she let us know what new grammar we were going to learn. This took up the rest of third block; it was time for me to go to math. I had a good first day in IAG IV with Mrs. Daniszewski; our class did basic review to prepare for the upcoming unit. I was glad to have math fourth block because math is one of my favorite subjects. The last time I looked at the clock that day it was 2:21 I felt ready for an afternoon nap. When I got home the first thing I did was lay in bed and fall asleep!